The Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation was founded in 2002 and is dedicated to the academic work and upkeep of the works of Alfred Ehrhardt (1901-1984). Alfred Ehrhardt was a photographer and filmmaker and is regarded as one of the outstanding representatives of the Neue Sachlichkeit. The main focus of his work was the concept of "Nature" and the "Construction of the Natural". In 2009, the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation decided to move from Cologne to Berlin in order to improve the publication of Alfred Ehrhardt's work as well as exhibit his work alongside contemporary art in alternate exhibitions.

The main challenge of the design was to convert a retail shop room in a typical Berlin apartment building in Auguststrasse in Berlin Mitte into a gallery space. It was important to create defined spaces and areas within the gallery that could cater for the presentation and exhibition of photographs from different eras, prints and perhaps paintings and sculptures as well as films and media art. The gallery occupies the entire ground floor of the front part of the house and the side wing and is arranged into an exhibition space with two street-facing shop windows - an "interspace" - another exhibition space with a shop window towards the inner courtyard - and an office and archive.